The Accidentals: Stories

“Families, secrets, and hidden desires loom large in this excellent collection.”

In the opening story of Guadalupe Nettel’s new collection, a young woman discovers by chance that her uncle lies dying in a hospital bed. He has long been ostracized by his relatives, to the point that his image is cut out of family photos. The narrator begins to visit him clandestinely, enjoying the attention he lavishes on her, only to learn that his disgrace, and subsequent ostracization, is because of things he did to her during her childhood.

In the fifth story, “Life Elsewhere,” the narrator misses out on buying his dream apartment. He later discovers that the buyer who beat him to it is an old schoolmate who has found fame and fortune as an actor. After stalking the actor’s beautiful wife, the narrator insinuates himself so thoroughly into the couple’s lives that he takes up residence in the apartment. The piece brings to mind both Auster and Borges, an A-to-B of the urban uncanny.   

Families, secrets, and hidden desires loom large in this excellent collection. Nettel gives us everyday scenarios—a camping trip, a couple buying an apartment—in which we sense that something is a little “off.” And then, with barely a whisper of warning, everything goes awry.

Along with familial dysfunction, environmental and societal collapse form the backdrop to several of the stories. In “A Forest Under the Earth,” a beloved ancient tree in the narrator’s yard begins to die, heralding a meditation on what it means to possess roots, literally and metaphorically. In “The Torpor,” a family that has spent 15 years in lockdown during an unnamed pandemic gets lulled into a soul-sapping lethargy. The mother/narrator dreams of going it alone but ultimately realizes that the price of freedom is too high (not for nothing are they called “family ties”).   

The stories are told in a first-person confessional voice. Sometimes, as in the title piece, “The Accidentals,” that voice comes across as so authentic that it feels autobiographical. Only occasional forays into the fantastical remind us that we are in fictional worlds.

Rosalind Harvey’s pitch-perfect translation renders Nettel’s Spanish in low-key, naturalistic prose. There are no literary fireworks here, just a creeping sense of doom—the idea that beneath the calm façade of family life, everything is rotting from the inside.